Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

The excitement continues.

To recap, Murtha still runs the show on Iraq, having control of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee that holds the purse strings on Iraq. (Insert Republican heartburn here.)

Now to the other developments on the House side that I covered on my radio show, that is, beyond the class act Hoyer proved to be yesterday.

The
Blue Dogs are pushing Pelosi towards Jane Harman. I won't even talk about
Rep.
Hastings, who should be a non-starter. Rep. John Conyers, one of the people
founded the Congressional Black Caucus, favored impeaching Hastings when he
was investigated. Hastings is not an option.

While a federal judge in Florida — and only two years after being appointed to the bench by President Jimmy Carter — Hastings was charged with accepting a $150,000 bribe in exchange for giving a lenient sentence to two men charged and convicted of racketeering. He was acquitted of the charge of bribery in a Miami court after an alleged accomplice went to prison rather than testify against him. But in 1989 the Democratic-controlled House took a look at the evidence and impeached Hastings for bribery and perjury by a 413-3 vote. The Senate — also Democratic controlled — convicted him on eight articles of impeachment and removed him from the bench. Pelosi voted for Hastings' impeachment. Intelligence panel's not the place for payback

As for Harman, Raw Story (via Sean-Paul) has more on the
California cat fight. Can't powerful women just get along? In a word, sometimes.
Harman really blew it on Iraq with all of her bipartisan nonsense at
a time when pushing back was required. But she also came out with the unknown
Iraq NIE nugget right before the election. I don't like the politics of the
Blue Dogs and this is ridiculous. They decided to send the letter on 11.13,
but it's dated the 16th. Speaker-elect Pelosi, welcome to your new job. Punt.

In addition, Carville
continues to gun for Howard
Dean. I guess he figures if we can target Lieberman with Ned Lamont, he
can go after Howard Dean. One problem, he's wrong on the facts and as Arianna said on Olbermann, he just misses being in power, which was a long time ago. But this is over the top even for the Eggman.

Asked by a reporter whether Dean should be dumped, Carville replied, “In a word, do I think? Yes.” He added, “I think he should be held accountable.” He added, “I would describe his leadership as Rumsfeldian in its competence.” Carville Says Dems Should Dump Dean over “Rumsfeldian” Incompetence

I've covered Carville before, specifically, what he did during the last moments
of the Kerry '04 campaign. Did
Carville sell him out? Depends on your point of view. But it certainly seems
Carville doesn't like being on the outs or feeling less important than we the
people, you know, the grass roots activists that make this happen. He and his
wife, who backed Senator Macaca, now have something politically in common. Both
are failing miserably in their terribly divisive campaigns.

Even Rahm has made peace with the DNC boss.

Dean called Emanuel on election night, and the two had a friendly conversation, according to sources affiliated with both men. When their schedules permit, Dean and Emanuel will meet privately to discuss their plans for the 2008 cycle. Both sides hope to reach, in advance, an understanding about how the Democratic party committees will fund state parties and candidate committees. After the private meeting, the two will likely take their rapprochement public. Meanwhile, current DNC member/ex-DNC chair Don Fowler e-mailed members of the DNC his response to Carville. “Some ill-advised voices have suggested that, because of his 50-state strategy, Governor Dean should be replaced as Chair of the DNC,” Fowler wrote in the e-mail. “This is nonsense. The 50-state strategy is exactly what the Democratic Party needed and continues to need. Why do the Washington people think that they have a special prerogative to dictate what the Democratic Party needs? I hope that all DNC members will join me in rejecting this foolishness–from whatever source it came.” “Democrats won a great victory on November 7–control of the United States House of Representatives, control of the United States Senate, majority of Governors, and majority of state legislative bodies. Why should anyone want to mess with the team that won these remarkable results? Governor Dean deserves to continue as DNC Chair.” [MARC AMBINDER] Carville's Still On A Tear, But Rahm and Dean Will Bury The Hatchet

If political conventions were this exciting they'd break Nielsen records.

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